RUSSELLISM 


A Counterfeit Christianity 


BY 

JOSEPH STUMP, D.D. 

President of Northwestern Lutheran Theological 
Seminary 


PHILADELPHIA, PA, 

THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE 











RUSSELLISM 

A Counterfeit Christianity 


BY 

JOSEPH STUMP, D.D. 

President of 

Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary. 


> 1 
> 6 
•> > ) 


PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

THE UNITED LUTHERAN PUBLICATION HOUSE 




Copyright, 1923 , By 
The Board of Publication of 
The United Lutheran Church in America 


RUSSELLISM 
A Counterfeit Christianity * 


Russellism is a counterfeit which seeks to have 
itself accepted in lieu of real Christianity. It is 
unbelief and materialism masquerading under the 
guise of the true religion. It seeks to establish 
itself by a great show of Scriptural proof, and dis¬ 
seminates its teachings by means of the lecture 
platform, books, religious publications, articles in 
the daily press and even by moving pictures. It is 
not a defective system of Christianity or a mingling 
of truth and error, but it is a complete system of 
error seeking to get itself accepted in the place of 
the truth. It is not merely, as some may imagine, 
a curious form of millenialism, but an anti-Chris¬ 
tian religion. It distorts or denies all the doctrines 
of the Christian Church. And it asserts that the un¬ 
belief, materialism and anti-Christian doctrines 
which it sets forth are the very teachings of the 


*The substance of this pamphlet was prepared some years ago. In 
compliance with a request for its publication, it has been revised and 
is now submitted to the press, in the hope that it may be of some 
service to the Church in guarding her members against one of the 
dangerous heresies of the day. 



4 


RUSSELLISM 


Bible itself. It is a far-reaching, well-organized 
and determined effort to subvert the Gospel and to 
substitute error in its place. 

It is a mistake to suppose that Russellism is a 
minor peril which may safely be ignored. It is 
wily and insidious. It seeks to introduce its books 
“to Christian people of all denominations” on the 
plea that its so-called “Studies in the Scripture” 
are reliable helps to the study of God’s Word. It 
offers the whole set of six books at a very low 
price, and gives them away for nothing if people 
are not able to pay for them. It is claimed on the 
title page of Volume I that as far back as 1907 that 
book already had a circulation of over two million 
.copies; and since then it is claimed that the circu¬ 
lation has more than doubled. We are assured that 
the books have been translated into a dozen dif¬ 
ferent languages. Colporteurs cover the land, and 
distribute books, tracts and papers from house to 
house. 

Russell’s name does not appear in the title of any 
of his books. His first book was published under 
the title “Millenial-Dawn, or the Plan of the Ages.” 
Now the books are published under the seductive 
title “Studies in the Scriptures.” His organization 
was first called “The Tower Publishing Co,” then 
“The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society;” and 
then “The International Bible Students’ Associa- 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


5 


tion.” The books are called “A Helping Hand for 
Bible Students.” The author of these books accuses 
the learned translators of the Bible of ignorance or 
dishonesty (Vol. V, pp. 333, 354). And it is well 
known that Russellite lecturers assert that the min¬ 
isters of the Christian Church do not themselves 
believe what they preach, and are deliberately “pull¬ 
ing the wool over people’s eyes.” 

Russellism practically asserts that through all the 
centuries past God has kept the world and the 
Church in utter ignorance on the most important 
doctrines of Scripture, and has only made them 
known through Russell within the last fifty years. 
(Vol. I, p 24; IV, p. 613.) 

The peril of Russellism lies not in any apparent 
ability to gain a large number of adherents for its 
complete system, but in the fact that where it is 
received, even only in part, it undermines belief in 
the existence of the soul and in eternal retribution 
for sin. Those who accept even this much of its 
teachings become persons for whom the Gospel 
loses all power of appeal; for what appeal can the 
Gospel make to those who believe that they have 
no soul and that there is no eternal death from 
which they need to be saved? 

Though anti-Christian in all its teachings, Rus¬ 
sellism makes a free use of Christian words and 
phrases. Much of its talk sounds like that of the 


6 


RUSSELLISM 


Christian Church. But when Russellism uses 
Christian words and phrases with which we have 
been familiar from childhood, we must bear in mind 
that it understands them in an entirely different 
sense from that in which we use them. To the 
Christian the words “Christ the only begotten Son 
of God” mean that Christ is the true and real Son 
of God from eternity; but when Russellism uses 
the same words, it does not mean the same thing. 
For Russellism denies that Jesus Christ is the true 
Son of God, and says that He is a creature. It 
freely uses our customary Christian phraseology, 
but empties it of its real meaning and understands 
it in a totally different sense. 

To know what Russellism really is, we must not 
depend upon the public utterances of its lectur¬ 
ers or on partial presentations of its teachings in 
pamphlets, but we must examine the authoritative 
statements of its teachings. These are contained in 
its so called “Studies in the Scripture.” Of these 
Volume V presents its teachings in the most sys¬ 
tematic form. While it may not appear so to the 
casual hearer of a Russellite lecturer, it is a fact, as 
these volumes show, that Russellism denies the 
doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the deity of Christ, 
the personality of the Holy Spirit, the atonement, 
and the resurrection of Jesus, as well as the exist¬ 
ence of the soul, the reality of hell, and the cer- 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


7 


tainty of eternal retribution. It teaches that the 
natural physical death is the full penalty of sin; 
that man becomes extinct at death; that Jesus died 
and became extinct; that Jesus did not rise from 
the dead, but that a new spirit expressly created for 
the purpose appeared to the disciples and deceived 
them into believing that he was Jesus risen from 
the dead; that the body of Jesus was removed 
from the grave or dissolved into gas by Almighty 
God; that by His death Jesus “ransomed” men, but 
that this “ransom” is not a redemption but the 
securing for men a new trial—a second chance to 
earn salvation by becoming perfect; that men’s ex¬ 
perience of sin in this age will be the means of de¬ 
terring many of them from wickedness in their 
new trial; that this second trial will take place 
in the millenium, orginally predicted to begin in 
1914, at which time God will make all the extinct 
men alive; that those who do not make good during 
the millenium will die again, the second death, and 
remain extinct and annihilated forever; that those 
who become perfect will have everlasting life, by 
which Russellism means not everlasting life in the 
Christian sense, but everlasting natural physical 
life supported by food here on the earth, which shall 
abide forever; and that the only exception consists 
of the Russellites, who, if they here in this world 
approve themselves as believers by absolute and 


8 


RUSSELLISM 


perfect sacrifice of self, shall have immortality, that 
is, shall be changed into spirit beings who shall live 
on the same spirit plane as Christ himself and shall 
with Him rule the world during the millenial age; 
and that God is not trying to convert the world 
during this present era, but only means to gather 
out of the world His elect—the Russellites. 

The errors of Russellism are so numerous, in¬ 
deed all its teachings are so anti-Christian that it is 
difficult to decide what points to take up by way of 
illustration. Let us begin with its errors concern¬ 
ing man. 

I. Errors Concerning Man. Russellism claims 
that man has no soul, in the common acceptance 
of that term; and that when the body dies, the 
whole man dies. His death is exactly like that of 
the dog or the horse. Much labor is expended to 
show that in the Hebrew Old Testament the same 
word is used to denote the life of the beast as to 
denote the life of man; and that the life of the 
beast is called its soul, just as man’s life is called 
his soul. 

One of the strong points of the Russellite lec¬ 
turers in the eyes of the masses is their apparent 
familiarity with the Scriptures, and their seeming 
ability to prove their contentions by the citation of 
proof passages. The audience often fails to realize 
that the Russellites quote only such passages as can 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


9 


be made to appear to support their contentions, but 
that they ignore those which too clearly contradict 

them. 

The stock proof of Russellism for the assertion 
that man has no soul and dies just like the beast 
is taken from Eccelsiastes, especially Chapter III, 
verses 19 to 21; and this passage is quoted again and 
again, as if it were an invincible argument. The 
passage reads: “That which befalleth the sons of 
men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; 
as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have 
all one breath, so that a man hath no pre-eminence 
above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one 
place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. 
Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth 
upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth 
downward to the earth ?” 

Now undoubtedly these words are in the Scrip¬ 
tures. But just as undoubtedly they do not prove 
what Russellism says they prove. We need to em¬ 
phasize that it is not sufficient to quote the bare 
words of a passage, but that we must take into con¬ 
sideration by whom and under what circumstances 
they were uttered. Unless this is done, almost any¬ 
thing could be proved from Scripture. By omit¬ 
ting from Psalm 14: 1 the words “the fool hath 
said in his heart” and by quoting simply the next 
words “there is no God,” it would be quite easy, 


10 


RUSSELLISM 


according to Russellite methods, to prove the non¬ 
existence of God. But, if we take into consideration 
as we must, the person who speaks these words we 
have a proof of the exact contrary. For the passage 
really declares that one who says there is no God 
is a fool. 

To be sure, Ecclesiastes is a book of the Bible, 
and the words quoted above about the death of the 
beast and of man are in it. But why and under 
what circumstances did Solomon speak them? We 
can understand the words only if we look at Solo¬ 
mon the man. In his youth he was God-fearing 
and religious; but in middle life he fell away from 
God, and for a long period he led a sinful, ungodly 
and unbelieving life. In his old age he repented. 
At the end of his life, after his varied experience, 
he records the conclusion to which he has come. 
It is given in the last two verses of Ecclesiastes. 
Pie says: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole 
matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; 
for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall 
bring every work into judgment, with every secret 
thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.” 

But before he records this final conclusion to 
which he has come, he records many other conclu¬ 
sions to which he had come during previous phases 
of his career. To quote the words of Angus (An¬ 
gus-Green: The Bible Handbook, page 590-1), Solo- 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


11 


mon gives us “a dramatic biography of his own 
life, not only recording hut re-enacting the succes¬ 
sive scenes of his own search for happiness; re¬ 
citing past experience, and in his fervor reproduc¬ 
ing the various phases of his former self. The 
author appears to be for the moment what he him¬ 
self describes. He seems to have fits of study (1: 
12-18), of luxury (2: 1-11), of grossness and re¬ 
finement, of conviviality and misanthropy; fits of 
building and of book-making, all ending in collapses 
of bitterest disappointment. We have in succession 
the man of science and the man of pleasure becom¬ 
ing fatalist, materialist, epicurean, stoic—and at 
last we have the noblest style of man—the humble 
and penitent believer.’' 

Evidently it is not a fair interpretation of Scrip¬ 
ture to take a passage from Ecclesiastes, like that 
quoted above, and to cite it as a proof that there 
is no difference between the fate of men and the 
fate of beasts when those words are the record of 
the views of Solomon, not as a godly and penitent 
believer, but as a materialist. They are a reproduc¬ 
tion of the views which he held when he had fallen 
away from God and was vainly seeking happiness 
and contentment in earthly pursuits and pleasures 
apart from God. It is no more a correct use of 
Scripture to quote the fatalistic and materialistic 
Solomon in proof that man dies like a beast and 


12 


RUSSELLISM 


has no soul, than it would be to quote the saying 
of the fool in proof that there is no God. 

Another argument for the claim that man has 
no soul and dies like the beast is based by Russell- 
ism on the fact that the Greek word Hades and the 
Hebrew word Sheol do not mean hell. It speaks 
as if it were the discoverer of that fact, though it 
is well known that the Revised Version retains the 
original words Hades and Sheol for lack of an 
English equivalent. Russellism arbitrarily assumes 
that Hades and Sheol are accurately and adequately 
translated by “oblivion.” And then by means of 
this assumption it proceeds to show r that the Old 
Testament persons who died went to oblivion, that 
is, became extinct. The statement of Christ con¬ 
cerning the rich man in Hades is, however, both 
so well known and so plainly contradictory to this 
“oblivion” theory, that Russellism is not able to 
ignore it. So it invents an interpretation which, to 
say the least, is quite extraordinary. (Vol. V, p. 
376.) It is this: the whole story of the rich man 
and Lazarus is a figure of speech; the rich man 
represents the Jews who have awakened in a na¬ 
tional Hades or oblivion, and Lazarus represents 
the Gentiles who are now comforted with the Gos¬ 
pel. This interpretation is exceedingly character¬ 
istic of Russellism, and shows the length to which 
it will go to establish its theory in the face 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


13 


of its self-evident contradiction of Scripture. 

Christ’s words to the thief on the cross also ex¬ 
pose the falsity of the Russelite teaching concern¬ 
ing the soul. And as these words are very familiar 
to nearly everybody, some means had to be found 
of explaining away this passage also. And this is 
the way in which it is done: The passage is said 
not to be punctuated right in the English version. 
The comma ought to be put after the word “today,” 
and not after the word “thee”; and the passage 
should read, “Jesus said unto him, Verily I say 
unto thee today, Thou shalt be with me in paradise.” 
(Vol. VI, p. 668.) This example shows to what 
expedients Russellism resorts when it finds itself 
driven into a corner. Certainly Christ had no rea¬ 
son to assure the thief that he was speaking to him 
“today” and not yesterday or the day before. And 
there would be absolutely no sense in the use of the 
word “today” unless it refers to what follows. 

One more example of Russellite exegesis: St. 
Paul says, I Thess. 5: 23, “I pray God your whole 
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless 
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here 
is a passage which unmistakably proves that even 
if the word “soul” be regarded as meaning only the 
spark of life in the human body, as Russellism main¬ 
tains, man yet has a spirit also. But Russellism 
explains the passage away (Book V, p. 353) in this 


14 


RUSSELLISM 


manner: “The terms body, soul and spirit are fig¬ 
uratively used of the Church collectively.” 

II. Errors Concerning Sin and Its Penalty. Rus- 
sellism’s teaching on sin and its penalty looks very 
simple. As a matter of fact, it is not simple, but 
superficial. It holds that bodily death is the pen¬ 
alty, and the full penalty of sin. Its theory essen¬ 
tially is this: God said to Adam, “In the day that 
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Adam 
ate of the forbidden fruit, incurred the penalty, and 
died—died the physical death at the age of 939 
years. That, says Russellism, is the full and final 
penalty for sin—the death of the body, and extinc¬ 
tion of earthly life. And that also is the end of 
the penalty. Even after the Russellite millenium, 
the persistently wicked will simply die again, like 
the beast dies, and stay dead. This staying dead, 
they say, is eternal punishment, eternal death. There 
is no hell. The worst that can befall the wicked 
is annihilation. 

It is to be observed that what Russellism regards 
as eternal punishment, namely, eternal extinction or 
annihilation, would seem to the wicked to be no 
punishment at all. It would be exactly what many 
of them would wish. On this theory they could 
do just what they please—lie, deceive, cheat, de¬ 
fraud, steal, oppress, plunder, commit adultery, and 
even commit murder; and then, if they could sue- 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


15 


cessfully elude human laws, the worst they would 
have to fear would be that they would die at last 
like every one else. 

This Russellite teaching is of course closely re¬ 
lated to its teaching concerning man. For if man 
has no soul, and the whole man dies with the body, 
then the logical and inevitable result must be that 
there can be no further punishment for sin beyond 
physical death. You cannot punish a man who has 
become extinct and who no longer exists. 

The Scripture teaching concerning the reality of 
hell and eternal punishment is clear and unmistak¬ 
able. It tells of the outer darkness where there 
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, of the 
wicked who are told to depart into everlasting fire 
prepared for the devil and his angels; of the fire 
that never is quenched; of the rich man who awoke 
in hell and in torments. It is not necessary to 
multiply passages. But it will be well for us to 
remember that God takes no delight in casting men 
into hell nor any pleasure in their sufferings there. 
Indeed He has done and is doing everything in 
His power to keep men out of hell. But if men 
will not heed His grace and permit Him to make 
them fit for heaven, what is left for Him to do 
with them except to shut them out of heaven into 
“outer darkness.” The assertion of Russellite lec¬ 
turers that the Christian Church represents God 


16 


RUSSELLISM 


as taking a delight in putting people into hell and 
in hearing them sizzle and broil is, of course, 
a gross misrepresentation of the Church's teach¬ 
ing. 

III. Denial of the Trinity. Russellism denies the 
fundamental doctrine on which the whole Chris¬ 
tian Church rests—the doctrine of the Holy Trin¬ 
ity. It says that there is no real Son of God and 
no personal Holy Ghost. 

The teaching of the Church on the basis of 
Scripture concerning Jesus Christ the Son of God 
is given in the Nicene Creed. He is “the only be¬ 
gotten Son of God; begotten of His Father before 
all worlds—God of God, Light of Light, Very God 
of Very God, Begotten, not made, being of one sub¬ 
stance with the Father; by Whom all things were 
made; who for us men and for our salvation came 
down from heaven, and was incarnate by the 
Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made 
man.” 

But Russellism declares (Vol. V, p. 84 seq.) that 
Jesus is only a creature of God, and not the Son of 
God from eternity; that there was an archangel who 
in some illogical way was a predecessor of Jesus; 
that this archangel ceased to exist when Jesus was 
born, though Jesus is not the archangel in human 
form but only a man; and that when Jesus died He 
absolutely went out of existence, and yet that He 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


17 


is now an archangel again; that He was not the Son 
of God until after He had sacrificed His human 
nature, even unto death; and that then, as a reward 
for His faithfulness, God made Him partaker of 
the divine nature, but on a lower plane than Him¬ 
self. In other words, Christ seems to be the arch¬ 
angel Michael raised to some kind of divinity. That 
there is a hiatus between the archangel and Jesus, 
and between Jesus and the “spirit being” who came 
to take His place, and that there is no vital con¬ 
nection between the three, does not seem to disturb 
Russellism. 

Naturally with such a doctrine concerning Christ, 
Russellism teaches only error concerning His re¬ 
demptive work. It has much to say about Jesus 
and His ransom for us; but as a matter of fact, 
in its eyes, Jesus has not redeemed men, but has 
simply “ransomed” them; i. e., has secured for all 
men a second chance to save themselves. Though 
men will become extinct and annihilated at death, 
they will somehow be raised from the dead at the 
millenium, and their experience of sin in this pres¬ 
ent age will be a warning to them to avoid sin then 
and become perfect. The worse they have been in 
this world, the more their experience will then be 
a warning to them, and consequently the better 
chance they will have of making good. Thus the 
prospects for earning everlasting life in the second 


18 


RUSSELLISM 


trial are better for Nero and Judas Iscariot than 
for others who were not so wicked as they in this 
present age. 

Russellism says (Book I, p. 150), “The ransom 
for all given by the man Christ Jesus does not give 
or guarantee everlasting life or blessing to any man, 
but it does guarantee to every man another oppor¬ 
tunity or trial for everlasting life.” How this teach¬ 
ing is to be reconciled with John 3: 16, “God so 
loved the world that he gave his only begot¬ 
ten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should 
not perish but have everlasting life,” Russellism 
does not say. According to Russellism the passage 
ought to read: “God so loved the world that he 
gave his archangel Michael, so that everybody, 
whether he believes or not, may have a second 
chance or new trial to earn everlasting life.” 

It may be worth while to look at the manner in 
which Russellism sets out to prove that Jesus, be¬ 
fore He came to earth, was the archangel Michael. 
It finds a proof for it in John 1:1. “Be it noted,” 
we read in Vol. V, p. 86, “that the apostle, writ¬ 
ing under inspiration, tells us that ‘The Logos was 
in the beginning with the God, and the Logos was 
a God.’ This is the literal translation of the Greek, 
as can be readily confirmed by any one, whether 
he is a Greek scholar or not. The Greek article 
ho precedes the first word ‘God’ in this verse, 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


19 


and it does not precede the second word ‘God’.” 

This reference to the absence of the definite 
article before the second the os (God) is supposed 
to prove that the Logos was simply a God, that is, 
an archangel. But the proof becomes valueless 
when we remember that the omission of the definite 
article before theos is frequent in the New Testa¬ 
ment. In the very same first chapter of John we 
have an omission of the article in verse 7, where we 
are told, “There was a man sent from God, whose 
name was John.” According to Russellism it ought 
to read, “There was a man sent from an archangel, 
whose name was John.” If the Russellite should 
object and say that the article is omitted in verse 7 
because theos occurs after a preposition, while in 
verse 1 it occurs in the nominative case, it is easy 
to meet the objection by citing passages in which 
theos occurs in the nominative case without the 
article, as for example, Luke 20:38 (R. V.) : “Now 
he is not the God of the dead but of the living.” 
Rom. 8:33: “It is God that justifieth”; and others. 

The author of “The Studies in Scripture” makes 
great pretensions of knowing Greek, but it is easy 
to show from his own books, that while he may 
know the Greek alphabet, he knows very little more. 
This is particularly evident in his endeavor to show 
from John 16: 13, 14, that the Holy Ghost is not a 
person. The well-known passage of Scripture reads. 


20 


RUSSELLISM 


“Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he 
will guide you into all truth.” In this passage the 
masculine pronoun “he” is obnoxious to the author 
of “The Studies in the Scriptures.” If it stands, it 
proves that the Holy Spirit is a person and not 
simply a power or influence. So he sets out to 
eliminate it. And this is the remarkable way in 
which he does it: 

He says (Vol. V, p. 171) : “The word ekeinos, 
rendered 'he’ in the passage under consideration, 
might with equal propriety be rendered ‘that*, ‘this’, 
‘those’, ‘the same’, ‘she’, ‘it’; and in our common 
English version it is rendered in all these different 
forms, and more frequently than as the masculine 
pronouns ‘he’, ‘his’, ‘him’.” He continues: “Any¬ 
one who is sceptical on this point can readily con¬ 
vince himself by consulting a Greek-English Con¬ 
cordance of the New Testament, which shows the 
various translations of these words.” And then he 
goes on to give some quotations which, he says, are 
translations of ekeinos —for instance, John 20: 
15, “She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith”; 
and again, Luke 20:1: “On one of those day, as he 
taught.” Now a first year Greek student would 
know at once that the word “she” quoted above is a 
translation of the feminine form of ekeinos, and 
that the “those” quoted above is a translation of the 
genitive plural. Thus it is clear that the man who 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


21 


freely declares in his books that the learned trans¬ 
lators of the Bible were either grossly ignorant of 
Greek or were dishonest, is himself so ignorant of 
Greek as not even to be aware of the fact that 
there is such a thing as inflection in the Greek 
language. 

IV. Denial of the Resurrection of Christ. The 
true doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is 
unquestionably the pivotal doctrine of the New 
Testament. When the apostles chose a man to take 
the place of Judas Iscariot among the twelve, they 
were careful to select one who had been a witness 
of the resurrection. And when they went forth 
to proclaim the Gospel, they based their preaching 
on the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead. 
Without the resurrection they could not have per¬ 
suaded men to believe on Christ; for if He had not 
risen He would simply have been a man like other 
men who died. But His resurrection proved that 
He was the Son of God; for God would not have 
raised an impostor from the dead. The resurrec¬ 
tion confirmed the voice which had said at His bap¬ 
tism, “This is my beloved Son.” It proved that 
the sacrifice which Jesus made on the cross satis¬ 
fied in full the demands of divine justice. “He was 
delivered for our offences and raised again for our 
justification.” 


22 


RUSSELLISM 


There is no fact in history so well authenticated 
as the resurrection of Jesus. He re-appeared to 
His disciples, not as a disembodied spirit, but with 
the same body which had been put to death on the 
cross. That body could be touched and felt, and 
had flesh and bones. It showed plainly the marks 
made by the nails and the spear. But it was a new 
body in the sense that it had new powers and prop¬ 
erties. It was no longer subject to the same limi¬ 
tations to which it had previously been subject. 
Jesus was able to appear and disappear at will, and 
to pass through closed doors. His body was a trans¬ 
formed and glorified body, such as ours shall be 
after the resurrection. 

We know from the record of the Gospel how 
carefully divine Providence perfected all necessary 
arrangements to make the proof of the resurrec¬ 
tion sure. A Roman guard, by the request of the 
Jews, was placed before the tomb to prevent the 
disciples from stealing the body and then saying 
that Christ had risen. The stone rolled before the 
tomb was sealed with the Roman seal. The very 
scepticism with which the disciples received the first 
news of the resurrection, and the difficulty with 
which they were convinced of its reality, prove that 
Jesus rose. They demanded the strongest and most 
abundant proof before they would believe. Thomas 
even refused to believe the testimony of his fel- 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


23 


low disciples, and demanded that he see and touch 
Jesus himself. During the forty days between the 
resurrection and the ascension Jesus gave the dis¬ 
ciples so many and such plain proofs, that, slow as 
they were to believe, their doubts were all removed, 
and they were filled with an unshakable and joyful 
conviction of the resurrection. 

Now Russellism comes to this great and pivotal 
doctrine of Scripture, and what does it do? It has 
a theory which is fundamental to Russellism and 
which must be maintained at every cost. That theory 
is, that physical death is the full and only wages of 
sin, and that physical death means annihilation. Un¬ 
less this theory is upheld, the whole structure will 
fall. Therefore it safeguards the theory, no matter 
what the consequences are to which it leads. Before 
this theory, not only must all Scripture be bent or 
broken, but Christ himself in His own person and 
work must be made to fit this theory, even in the 
face of the plain teaching of Scripture. Accord¬ 
ingly, in place of the well attested Scripture doc¬ 
trine of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, 
Russellism teaches that our Lord Jesus Christ was 
annihilated on the cross. It declares that He died 
and stayed dead. He became extinct. He will 
never live again. He did not rise from the dead 
and never will. His body was in all probability 
dissolved into gas. 


24 


RUSSELLISM 


The teaching of Russellism at this point is con¬ 
fused, in that it claims to have one Christ, while in 
reality it has three. The first Christ of Russellism 
is the archangel Michael, who did not become a 
man, but who somehow went out of existence when 
Jesus was born. The second is the Jesus who lived 
on earth, and Who was a mere man, not the 
archangel Michael nor the Son of God, but only a 
man; and He was annihilated on the cross. The 
third Christ is “a spirit being of the highest order” 
who appeared to the disciples on Easter; but since 
Jesus was annihilated on the cross, this “spirit be¬ 
ing” must necessarily have been an entirely different 
person from the Jesus who was crucified. It is 
evident that there is no real personal connection 
between the three, and that they are three inde¬ 
pendent Christs. 

This “spirit being” of the highest order, whom 
Russellism invents after the crucifixion, and who is 
not the Christ who died for us on the cross, is the 
only Christ whom Russellism now knows. The 
Jesus Christ whom we know is, according to its 
theory, dead and will stay dead forever. 

That this is the actual teaching of Russellism may 
be seen from the following citations: In Vol. V, p. 
362, we are told, “Our Lord’s being or soul was 
non-existent during the period of death.” Vol. V, 
p. 454, declares: “It was necessary not only that the 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


25 


man Christ Jesus should die, but just as necessary 
that the man Christ Jesus should never live again, 
should remain dead—to all eternity.” Vol. V, p. 
454, says: “The man Jesus is dead, forever dead.” 
Vol. V, p. 466, declares: “The man Christ Jesus 
suffered for us death in the most absolute sense of 
the word, ‘everlasting destruction’.” 

Thus from its own words it is clear that Russell- 
ism teaches that Jesus was annihilated on the cross; 
and that the Jesus whom we know from the Gos¬ 
pels, who taught men the truth of God, who healed 
the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind, who raised 
the dead to life, who was God incarnate and who 
redeemed us by His crucifixion and death, was not 
what He claimed to be, but was simply a man who 
died on the cross and stayed dead, extinct, has 
never lived since and never will live again to all 
eternity. And in His place Russellism puts another 
Christ who is not Christ at all, but a spirit whom 
God created for the occasion, and who deceived the 
disciples into believing that he was the real Jesus 
whom they knew and loved and who had now risen 
from the dead. 

This new Christ, who is not Christ at all but a 
spirit created after Christ’s annihilation, does not 
have a human body, says Russellism (Vol. II, p. 
129). But when he appeared to the disciples be¬ 
hind closed doors he assumed a temporary body 


26 


RUSSELLISM 


created for the purpose of making the disciples 
believe that Jesus had risen, while in reality His 
body was being dissolved into gas or hidden away, 
nobody knows where (Vol. II, pp. 125-130). And 
in order that the disciples might all the more surely 
be deceived into believing that Jesus had risen, 
Russellism tells us (Vol. II, p. 129), that “Our 
Lord’s human body was supernaturally removed 
from the tomb; because, had it remained there, it 
would have been an insurmountable obstacle to the 
faith of the disciples.” In other words, Almighty 
God Himself, according to Russellism, deceived the 
disciples into believing that Jesus had actually in 
His own body risen from the tomb, while in reality 
His body had been secretly removed from it or had 
been dissolved into gas. The claim of the chief 
priests and elders, that the disciples had stolen 
Christ’s body away by night while the soldiers slept, 
is mild by the side of this assertion that Almighty 
God dissolved Christ’s body into gas or hid it, and 
then Himself deceived the disciples into believing 
that Jesus had risen from the dead. 

Compare this doctrine of Russellism with the 
simple and plain words of Holy Scripture in Luke 
24: 36-44: “As they thus spake, Jesus himself 
stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, 
Peace be unto you” (v. 36). Thus it is Jesus him¬ 
self who stands in their midst, the One of whom 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


27 


Russellism says that He is dead, extinct and annihi¬ 
lated forever. “But they were terrified and af¬ 
frighted and supposed that they had seen a spirit” 
(v. 37). That is to say, the disciples at first im¬ 
agined that they saw the very thing which Russell¬ 
ism says is the only thing they did see, namely, a 
spirit. “And he said unto them, Why are ye 
troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? 
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; 
handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and 
bones, as ye see me have.” (Vs. 38, 39). 

Here is a denial as direct and unequivocal as any 
denial in human words can be, that the person whom 
the disciples saw before them was a “spirit-being” 
as Russellism maintains, and a clear and unmistak¬ 
able declaration that it was the Lord Jesus him¬ 
self, and that the body which had been put to death 
on the cross was not dissolving into gas or hidden 
away somewhere by God, but was risen and was 
there in the room with the disciples—a glorified 
body, indeed, with new attributes and powers, but 
the veritable body of Jesus, which had flesh and 
bones, and could be handled and felt, and which, 
as the next verse shows, bore the plain marks of 
the crucifixion. For v. 40 reads, “And when he 
had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his 
feet.” 


28 


RUSSELLISM 


Russellism seeks to harmonize this passage with 
its teaching by declaring, that the body with which 
the “new spirit-being” appeared to the disciples 
was not an actual resurrection body, but one which 
was specially created after the “spirit being” had 
entered into the room and was dissolved when he 
vanished from the disciples’ sight. “The human 
body with its flesh and bones, etc., and its clothing, 
which appeared suddenly while the doors were shut 
did not go out of the door but simply disappeared 
and dissolved into the same elements from which 
he had created them a few moments before.” (Vol. 
II, p. 127). 

Russellism has taken away the Christ of the 
Scriptures and has substituted another Christ of 
its own invention. According to its teaching Jesus 
is dead and stays dead forever; and in His place 
there is substituted a “spirit being” who has no 
human body and who is not Jesus Christ risen from 
the dead. It starts with a theory with which Scrip¬ 
ture must be compelled to accord. That theory is 
that physical death is the annihilation of man’s be¬ 
ing and the full penalty of sin. The false conclu¬ 
sion that Jesus was annihilated on the cross, and 
that a new Christ was created to deceive the dis¬ 
ciples into believing in a resurrection which had 
not taken place is simply the logical and inevitable 
conclusion from its false premise concerning the 


A COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY 


29 


penalty of sin. Russellism has abolished hell and 
it has abolished and annihilated Jesus Christ. Ac¬ 
cording to its teaching man has no soul to be 
saved; there is no eternal punishment from which 
he needs to be saved; and there is no Saviour Jesus 
Christ who has provided salvation for all who ac¬ 
cept it by faith. 

Other men have taught that man has no soul, 
that he dies like the dog and the horse, and that 
death ends his existence; other men have declared 
that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was only im¬ 
aginary. But they have acknowledged that their 
teachings were anti-Scriptural, and that in teaching 
and believing these things they were rejecting the 
testimony of the Bible. But Russellism distorts or 
denies every doctrine of God’s Word, and pro¬ 
claims the theories of the sceptic, the infidel and 
the materialist; and then it asserts that these things 
are the teachings of Scripture! It is doubtful 
whether the hisory of the world shows anything 
more audacious than this. 

It would easily be possible to go into larger de¬ 
tail in refuting the teachings of Russellism. But 
that ought not to be necessary. What has here 
been presented shows the spirit and method of Rus¬ 
sellism. It bends the Scripture to fit its theory, 
its exegesis is thoroughly unsound and false, and 
its doctrines are utterly anti-Christian. Even the 


30 


RUSSELLISM 


few examples of its teachings and methods here 
given ought to convince every clear mind that Rus- 
sellism is a blind leader of the blind, and that they 
who follow its leadership will simply fall into the 
ditch. It is a false and spurious religion seeking to 
have itself accepted as true Christianity. Those 
who accept it accept a counterfeit, with the conse¬ 
quences which that involves. The teachings of the 
sceptic and the materialist cannot save any one, even 
if those teachings are made to masquerade as the 
doctrines of Scripture. 









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